History of the Protestants of France, from the commencement of the Reformation to the present time

by G. de Félice

And, indeed, the declaration of 1724, while it repeatedly engendered frightful consequences, was never fully executed. It contained, moreover, dispositions revolting against the most sacred feelings of human nature, justice, and society. To punish with the galleys and confiscation of wealth a son, or a daughter, who addressed pious exhortations to a dying father; to inflict a similar punishment upon whoever should fail to denounce his pastor, or should open to him the door of his house; to load with a fine the physician who should refuse to discharge the infamous office of informer—all this, as M. de Sismondi remarks, bore the stamp of so barbarous and savage a fanaticism, that it may be doubted if the code of any other nation has approached it. Were it possible, again, in the eighteenth century, to write similar atrocities in the laws, it would be impossible to find judges and administrators to carry them out.

As it always happens, atrocity engendered ridicule. Some of the priests instituted a roll-call of children in the Church, after the example of serjeants at a military review, and noted those who were absent that their parents might be fined. But the children frequently refused to answer, mocked the curate, and disturbed his mass. What could be done? Where were the means of punishment, when it might be required to send a whole population, fathers, mothers, and children, to the galleys?

Cardinal Fleury, who governed the kingdom after the Duke de Bourbon, seems to have comprehended this difficulty. Having been engaged in his youth on a mission with Fénélon in Saintonge, and passed many years in Provence, he was acquainted with the invincible firmness of the Protestants. This, conjoined with the alliance of this priest with Great Britain and Holland, the mildness of his character, and his desire of sparing Louis XV. the anxieties of government, will explain his conduct towards the Protestants. He did not destroy the sword of intolerance, but he willingly let it remain in the scabbard.

The curates of Cevennes addressed several urgent remonstrances to him upon this subject. They bitterly complained of the increasing desertion of the Huguenots. The aged cardinal gave little heed to them; he was engrossed with other affairs, and feared disturbance more than heresy.

The persecution, therefore, was only local and momentary, according to the humour of the intendants. Some meetings were surprised and dispersed by the soldiery; some families were ruined, and other unfortunates were condemned to the galleys. The pastors, particularly, were tracked with implacable cruelty, in the hope that the terror of death would induce them to quit the kingdom.

Many of them were capitally executed. We will cite [the case of] the minister Alexander Roussel, who was hanged at Montpellier, on the 30th of November, 1728, respecting whose martyrdom a popular complaint has come down to us. He was sold for a bribe, and confessed without hesitation that he had preached in Cevennes. When he was asked where he lodged, he replied: “The heaven is my covering.” The Jesuits vainly solicited him to change his religion; his answer was: “I will ever keep the law of Jesus Christ: if I die for His sake, I shall dwell with angels.” He was dragged to the gallows with the rope about his neck, bareheaded and barefoot, singing the 51st psalm, and died uttering prayers to God for his judges and the executioner.

Another pastor, Pierre Durand, who, with Antoine Court, had signed the first deliberations of the synods of the wilderness, was also executed at Montpellier, on the 22nd of April, 1782. He was a man full of years, and noted for his faith and zeal. Five priests accompanied him to the scaffold, and endeavoured to wrench from him an abjuration at any price. Durand remained firm to the last.

These executions afflicted the Protestants of the wilderness, but did not cast them down. The very exactions of the clergy themselves conspired to drive them from the Church of Rome; for seeing that they would not be satisfied with simple forms of (Roman) Catholicism, they resolved upon renouncing the Church in their turn, and that completely. From this time the number of baptisms and marriages of the wilderness multiplied, in spite of the civil disabilities which attainted them.

Antoine Court strengthened and encouraged the faithful by his exhortations and his example. In 1728 he undertook a tour of nearly a hundred leagues, convoked thirty-two religious meetings in two months, and counted as many as three thousand hearers at the foot of his pulpit; even the most timid began to be emboldened.